On the issue of the translation of I. A. Bunin's story "Madrid" into Chinese (translated by Chen Fu)
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the key challenges encountered in translating Ivan Bunin's short story "Madrid" into Chinese. The research focuses on the Russian-Chinese literary translation of "The Madrid Restaurant" by Chinese translator Chen Fu, while the subject matter focuses on the linguastylistic transformations in the Chinese version of the story, affecting the title, speech characteristics, sound organization, and the rendering of subjective modality. Specific examples demonstrate how a translation strategy aimed at simplifying and "flattening" the text leads to the negation of Bunin's carefully constructed system of semantic and stylistic nuances. In conclusion, the author states that while there is no such thing as a perfect literary translation, constant and deep immersion in the Russian language and the writer's poetics always paves the way for improving the translation of Bunin's story. The study is based on a comparative linguastylistic analysis of the Russian original and Chinese translation, as well as an interpretive method. The scientific novelty of this study lies in the fact that the author, for the first time, conducts a comparative analysis between Bunin's story "Madrid" and its Chinese translation, "Restaurant Madrid," by Chen Fu. Against the backdrop of active Russian-Chinese cultural exchange, scholars in both countries have addressed the issue of translating Russian literature into Chinese and Chinese literature into Russian, but until now, a publication specifically addressing Bunin's story "Madrid" and its Chinese translation, "Restaurant Madrid," has been lacking. This article fills this gap. Since this article focuses on a single story by a Russian writer, the author's conclusions are also concrete: although there is no such thing as a perfect literary translation, especially when it comes to translating such subtle artists of the word as Ivan Bunin, nevertheless, constant and deep immersion in the Russian language and the poetics of the Russian writer always opens the way to improving the translation of the story "Madrid." The Chinese audience is waiting for a new version of the translation of this story.
Source: Филология научные исследования
Author: JIAQI HU
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7118129381